Hi Ana,
thanks for your insight.
Le jeudi, 22 novembre 2012 16.33:22, Ana Guerrero a écrit :
> Some months ago I was in the bid decision meeting and I voted to have
> DebConf in Switzerland. It was not an easy decision, both bids were quite
> close and both have problems. In the meeting, there wasn't the possibility
> of not choosing any bid, something that now looking back should have been
> a valid outcome.
Yes. I think it should have been a possible outcome. If we end up deciding to
stop all this now (which is IMHO a possible outcome of tonight's meeting),
deciding it back then would have spared all of us quite a lot of energy.
> And also, the bid was presented with some assumptions that
> later have not worked as expected. I was expecting the team (local and
> global) working in getting the bid better, not worse as it has became in
> the last months.
Can you be more precise there ? As I (biasedly) see it, it has got better, not
worse in the last months. The ability of the team to work together and share a
vision has arguably gotten worse, but the bid itself is not (in my eyes) worse
than it was in February. It might be worse than what people expected us to do
with it, but not worse than it was; IMHO.
> * accommodation and camping.
> (…)
>
> What is the situation now:
> We can't camp.
That's wrong.
> It is explicitly stated in the "conditions générales" [3]
> of le camp that camping is forbidden. Any override of this conditions must
> be clearly specified in the contract, which isn't the case at this moment.
This has been written already several times, but let's repeat it here: We've
been told, in several face-to-face meetings with the responsible of LeCamp,
that we would be allowed to camp. As we are having a trustful relation with
him, even if it's not (yet ?) written down, we are confident (I am 100%
confident; not 99%, 100%) that we'll be allowed to camp during DebConf.
> People wanting to go to DebConf are forced to sleep in le camp in the
> dorms.
That putting things in a biased perspective. Many rooms have less than 6 beds
per room, in modern buildings.
> The alternative is car+hotel that is quite expensive even for swiss
> prices given you don't have a lot of hotels to choose from around. I did a
> quick search and if DebConf were in Geneva, people staying in a hotel
> would have only half of the costs.
Yes. But people "not in hotels" would sleep in anti-nuclear underground
bunkers. I (for one) am not interested in organising a conference where the
richers can get hotel beds and the rest is supposed to go sleep under the
ground (literally).
I think LeCamp provides globally (on average/median) better hosting conditions
for cheaper than what we could get in Geneva.
> The problem with the big rooms and having all the people together in le
> camp is the total lack of privacy: people attending DebConf will be
> surrounded by people 24/7 which is very tiring emotionally for a lot of
> people.
Le Camp is also isolated and "at" a forest: you can be literally "alone in the
woods" (and safe) within 5 minutes walk. That was not possible in
DebConf1{1,2} as far as I'm concerned.
And people won't be "surrounded by people 24/7", that's again a biased way to
put it.
> * possibility of external catering
>
> (…)
> 198.46153846153845
>
> we wouldn't reach the threshold.
I disagree. And on top of that, I'm really (really) tired of this dance: the
biggest initial concern against LeCamp was that it was too small (!). This has
been hashed on our heads for months: we should be looking for something else
because it will certainly be filled, by far. I don't think it's fair to use
the exact inverse argument now, sorry.
> * team starting to raise money very early
>
> Decision meeting:
> The team was aware of the costly DebConf and they would start raising money
> very early. Like from after ending DebConf12.
>
> The situation now:
> The team started 2-3 weeks ago. Why? Because the real problem here is the
> local team wants to do everything lineally and in some order they have
> thought, and DebConf doesn't work in this way.
I disagree with this analysis fwiw.
My analysis is that the local team members (as there is no "local team" we've
been told) felt (and some still feel) highly demotivated by the undecision
hole we're all into.
We spent _lots_ of time and energy investigating possible venues _before_
choosing that one (this was last year, in autumn). We kept a very clear track
record of that on the wiki. Back then (before and after the decision) we have
not been listened, for understandable reasons already explained before. We
(alone) then picked the solution we thought would be best and that would fit
our vision most closely. We presented both our vision and our choice
(including the alternatives) to the decision meeting. Then we got the critics,
mostly about the vision and venue we had proposed (while accepted by the
decision meeting).
This all felt (and feels) like not trusting us as a group, for the work we did
before and after the decision meeting and for the experience we tried to bring
in.
> But things are never fully closed until a couple of months before the
> conference itself and some change 2 and 3 times.
While that's possibly true, we are now in a "tight" situation with LeCamp
because we are at a moment at which they expect to have their summer fully
booked. Also we settled on these weeks because these were the only summer ones
free back when we asked. So this venue, that some of us consider the best
choice we had, <em> will not be available </em> in May.
Cheers,
OdyX
_______________________________________________
Debconf-team mailing list
Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org
http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
